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James Monroe

Section 5: Minister to France

Section 7: The Louisiana Purchase

Monroe returned to the United States almost three years
to the day after he left. After a summer of politicking, he settled
back in Virginia, playing host for a while to the Madison family.
He wanted badly to begin work on a new mansion at his plantation
in Albemarle. Monroe had bought the thirty-five hundred acre plantation next
to Jefferson's Monticello just before he left for France, and in 1799
he constructed a six-room house. Intended to be a only a temporary
house while the larger house was constructed, Monroe and his family
ended up living there for two decades–his life never again settled
down enough to allow construction to proceed. At various points,
the estate was known as "lower plantation," in honor of Monticello,
later "Highlands," and finally as "Ashlawn."

Monroe still suffered from financial troubles. He had
been paid a salary of nine thousand dollars, but that amount had
proved grossly inadequate to support himself and his family in
France and meanwhile maintain payments on his holdings in America.
He had to mortgage his home in Albemarle to pay the cost of shipping
his belongings back from France, and when the government demanded that
he reimburse it for 350 dollars, Monroe had to borrow money from
family members to pay up.

He still struggled as well with the legacy of his work
in France. To clear his name, he published a 407-page book outlining
everything he had done and including all correspondence between
himself and the government. With such openness, the Federalists
could not accuse him of underhanded tricks in dealing with the
French.

Thomas
Jefferson, Monroe, and James Madison spent most of the
next two years carefully stage-managing Virginia politics and the
anti- federalist party, now known as the Republicans. Due to illness,
Monroe missed one key moment, the drafting of the Virginia and
Kentucky Resolutions. Yearning for public office again, Monroe
waited for the opportunity to run again. Madison and Jefferson urged
Monroe to run for the House, but Monroe held out to be governor.
In 1799, Monroe was elected governor by a strict party vote of the
legislature: 116 to 66.

Monroe felt rejuvenated by the win. His party had affirmed
their support for him; the trials of France were behind him. He
charged ahead with an ambitious reform platform, and won almost
universal acclaim for his deft handling of state government. He
began updating the state legislature annually with an address similar
to the annual address the president gave to Congress. He worked
to update the state militia. Most of all, though, he used his post
to constantly expound on the glories of democracy and republicanism.
He worked tirelessly to expand the powers of the executive as far
as the state constitution would allow, even regaining some of the
powers the post had lost during the colonial era.

In the summer of 1800, yellow fever broke out in Norfolk
and the governor spent many longs days designing a program to defeat the
disease; he even closed all Virginia ports to Norfolk shipping unless
the ships passed a quarantine. And so it was, that on August 30,
1800, Monroe was at the capital in Richmond instead of home with
his sick son and wife. A planter came to inform him that a slave
rebellion was in the works for that evening and that the city must
act quickly or else risk widespread unrest. Monroe activated the
newly reformed militia to guard the city and luckily a summer thunderstorm
flooded some of the approaches to the city, temporarily disrupting
the insurrection. By September 2, more than a score of slaves had
been arrested and huge caches of home-made weapons had been uncovered.
Patrols scoured the countryside for the leader of the rebellion,
a slave named Gabriel. Because of the quick response, Monroe prevented
bloodshed. His strong hand and uncompromising execution of the
governor's powers helped arrest any further trouble–and earned
him even more praise from the legislature.

His response, though, showed a nuanced view of slavery.
While he disliked the institution, he thought that outright abolition
would be a disaster and so worked to keep slavery in place until
another system could replace it.

In the winter of 1801, Monroe saw his mentor Jefferson
elected president–further vindicating the Republican party. Thus,
when Monroe got word that Jefferson might try to make peace with
the federalists, he strongly argued against any such move.

As his term wound down in 1802, Monroe needed to return
to private life–his debts continued to mount, much higher than
he could afford on a public salary–and he leased a house in Richmond. However,
as had happened so many times before, his private life (and finances)
became co-opted in the name of his country. Thomas Jefferson needed
him to return to Europe.